By the time we get gaming in our Friday night games its 11 o'clock. We ran for about three hours tonight and I reckon that will be our pattern, getting tired at around two unless or until we hit a collective homerun and just want to game until dawn because the game's got us and won't let go.

However, our schedules and sleep dep might make that never happen and if not, cool.

Tonight I wrote down every time we rolled the dice and what the conflicts were in our less than three hour session. Let's see how readable my notes are:

Melvin and Foreman = Lost the LeafThis is a reference to Melvin losing his leaf from another world that he got in his Accomplishment scene.

If Melvin won he would have gotten some kind of a clue from the foreman but he lost and lost the leaf. Now that I think of it, this might've been a pair of conflicts.

Mookie and the Thing in the Concrete Crypt = Loses WooflesThey lost their dog to a mysterious thing in a crypt that was also the cornerstone of the building being constructed just beyond their backyard. The thing turned out to be a friendly NPC, Marv Mouthless, the Gate Keeper.

Melvin vs. MookMook sees Melvin tell his dad where Red is hiding.

Mook vs. DadMook does not lie successfully to his father about where Red is hiding

The consequence of this, without a conflict was Bret narrating a scene in which his character was beaten with a belt right in front of the other characters prompting a discussion of our having witness abuse like this in our lives.

Melvin fails sneakingMelvin fails and is caught sneaking into his father's study after a bang in which he hears an answering machine message from the O.W. corporation that is building the mysterious building where they were sneaking around that has the otherworldly leaf on its logo.

Melvin Eats DirtRed pins Melvin down and makes him eat dirt. I think Bob considered Bringing Down the Pain or Making a Stand as it will be known in 1st Quest but when he saw he dice-screwed he'd be, reconsidered it.

Bret did a really neat job of showing his character as being conflicted and messed up. He described her as crying while she forced Melvin to eat the dirt. Rough.

Melvin does MagicMelvin makes a chain linked gate disappear so that Marv can take them to the gate.

Knights CircleThese crack-addicted knights from the Otherworld circle the kids, all but Mook who gets away. When Bob realized that the knights were referring to crack when they were asking the kids for Rock, he offered me a Bonus Die. I was taking their original idea of someone taking things from our world into a spirit/fantasy world to dark places.

One of the problems with our world generation was that it didn't spawn enough motifs but I think the Miyazaki vibe we are going for is working out alright. The knights all drive these horrible Horse-Bikes who have handlebars coming out of their ears and no legs but a back tire.

Mook Falls in the MudJoe proposed that Mook would try to scare their Horse-Bikes away but when he turned down my offer to try his Dark Magic skill, he failed, not having any kind of real scrapping skill. He failed and was in the same mess that his sister and cousin were.

The knights took the kids to their crumbling fortress and then road off into the knight looking for the rock they craved.

Red Steals Horse-keysWhile they put them in their cells, Bret proposed that Red would steal a set of Horse-Keys. I think if she failed she would have been tied up in her cell, which was a pretty damned weak stake.

Honestly, I didn't want these crack addicted knights slapping this little girl around; I wasn't prepared to do that and wimped out on the stake. Boo on me, I say. That would have made them into really horrific bad guys.

She won, anyway, and stole the keys.

I think what is interesting about the stakes setting and kind of tracking a game this way is I see how you tell the players something about your NPC's even through stakes that never happen.

Interesting.

Mook Uses Fell MagicsJoe blew open the cell doors with green energy from a skill in the cell. The idea was prompted by me but Joe jumped on it and was digging it.

Bret and Bob had their characters act kidn of freaked out by it, giving the Dark Magics their due and making them have some real oomph.

The stakes were that if he won he'd blow open the door and if he lost he'd still blow open the door but he'd mortally wound Marv in the process.

I was really hoping for a loss but Joe won.

We ended there for the night, with Bret's character giving Marv the keys to a Horse-Bike and the kids riding away from the crack knights into this new and mysterious world.

I dig the way the stakes setting really set up the situation and once we got started and the dice started rolling, it was really easy to set up the next scene. I don't think this is 1Q-centric, just from conflict resolution in general.

Neat stuff and a cool way to keep story notes, just write down a simple note every time anyone rolls the dice.

The thing I was trying to do with Red here was she felt fucking betrayed by Melvin. She did all this stuff trying to help him, including breaking her a lamp to cause a distraction while Melvin stole some food out of the fridge for Marv. Then he rats her out to his dad because she punched him a few times. This was a big deal. She was trying to help him and he turned on her (in her eyes anyway, Melvin didn't really know what the consequences of "ratting" on her would be). I actually thought about buying off my Banner of the Companion at this point. And then later, I set up this conflict where Red waited for Melvin to come through a hole in a fence, and forced him to the ground and made him eat dirt while crying. Joe described Mook as playing with his dog, and pretending like it wasn't happening, which was awesome - our character's family is messed up.

I probably should have elaborated on this betrayal more to the rest of the table. I don't think I said anything about what Red was thinking or how she was feeling, and Bob's portrayal of Melvin was "Stop beating me up." I sort of wondered if what I was trying to do with the character - develop some interesting relationship issues, got overshadowed by some of the dark and depressing narrative I was doing (after the whipping, she was in her room crying - her dog came up to her and licked her and she kicked it). I've always been uncomfortable with dialogue of character's thoughts and actions. We used to play with this one gamer who would give elaborate descriptions of his character's thoughts and actions, and it would frustrate a lot of people, making me adverse to doing it altogether.

Now for something completely different.

Before the game I told this story about an old Deadlands game I was in. I saw Deadlands as dark, dusty horror, and the GM told me that's how he was running it. However, the rest of the players were playing a light-hearted, campy romp. When my character got gut-shot by a friend of his, I described him dragging himself into the desert until he found the shade of a tree, and shooting himself in the head. The whole table went dead. Nobody said anything. I made them really, really uncomfortable. That was a situation where we were playing different games - I wanted dark and intense, they wanted light and funny.

So last night with Red, I brought some pretty intense moments from my childhood into the game. In the scene where Melvin ratted out Red, and her father dragged her by her hair and whipped him with her belt in front of him, I had been Melvin - telling on a friend for something petty and then seeing their father beat the crap out of them for it. Joe and Bob were both like, "Uh... wow..." But that's what I want out of games. Something emotional and intense. When we talked about Red holding Melvin down and making him eat dirt, I sorta got tears in my eyes. She felt betrayed, and she didn't know any other way to deal with it besides beating the shit out of him even though that's not what she wanted to do. These were the coping methods handed down to her.

Afterwards, Judd and I were walking down the hall to go to the bathroom and vending machines respectively, and I was like, "You know... I never even ASKED if exploring this kind of shit would make those guys uncomfortable." Basically, I was seeing Deadlands happening all over again. I went back and talked to them, and they were cool, but I still felt like I came dangerously close to stepping over the other player's comfort zones for the sake of pursuing my own agenda without communicating to them first.

But I also felt like what I was doing with my character was unappreciated - nobody else was feeling the intensity of the betrayal, or the tragedy of her beating the shit out of Melvin who she did feel an intense loyalty to (hence her Banner of the Companion) - I was lacking my audience. But at the same time, if I talk about this shit while it's happening, I feel like a spotlight-hogging prima donna.

So last night with Red, I brought some pretty intense moments from my childhood into the game. In the scene where Melvin ratted out Red, and her father dragged her by her hair and whipped him with her belt in front of him...

Joe immediately changed his Banner of Curiousity from Other People's Business (which I had told him was a bit vague and I might very well ask him to change) to Why Are People Mean to One Another, which I thought was a really nifty curiousity to have. When he did that, I knew he wasn't uncomfortable with the subject matter at hand.

Bob said he was cool and we were off...

I'm glad it is working for ya, Bret. You are playing the hell out of the Banner of Home's Shadow.